Can't start! HELP!!!

Hi all, I have '90 civic dx hatchback with 120K on it. Last year, I started having problems starting the car. So I changed the battery and the starter. The car worked flawlessly until two days ago. I drove it wot work after it sat in my garage for 1 week. It seemed fine. After workday, I tried to start it. It cranks lights are on but no ingition. I tried to jump it thinking my battery got weak somehow but no avail. The car sat on the parking lot for 1 hr with hood popped. Then I successfully started it and drove home. Then I changed spark plugs (they were bad), distributor cap (decent) and rotor (not bad). The damn thing would crank and not start.
Any ideas??? Thanks

Could be the igniter or the coil - The igniters are known problems in our cars..it is a little black biscuit looking thing inside the dizzy. Honda will replace it for free if it hasn't been already. Or you can also get non-OEM ones at Autozone, etc. I think.

I had intermittent issues with my igniter for a while..and no issues since I replaced it.

And, welcome to the board. :wave:

Thanks for your advice. I wanted to ask if I don't have spark at all, it is probably the igniter itself. Also is it a big deal to change?

Yeah..no spark generally indicates the igniter...but I am only a self-proclaimed expert ;) I am sure someone else here can help you trouble-shoot better, so you can figure out if it is the coil or igniter.

It isn't that difficult...it should just be a few screws/bolts inside the dizzy. The unit itself is a kinda u shaped, 2" long and 1/4" thick or so with a few prongs sticking out of it. Make sure you get good connections on those when you tighten everything up. The stupid dealer didn't and mine ran like crap until I "re-installed" it properly.

If you don't have one already, a Helms manual (US distributor for Honda Service Manuals) for your Civic is the best $60 you'll ever spend.

http://www.helminc.com

Hope this helps - Shawn

Thanks for the info. I got both parts the coil and the igniter ($90). I also printed the instructions to check them with the voltmeter. We'll see. I doubt it is both. Probably the coil. Is this a common thing with Civics?

There was actually a Honda recall on the igniter....I have not personally had any problems with my coil, and my car has 210K miles on it. I bought it at 63K miles in 1994.

There have been a few peeps in here with coil problems tho...electrical problems are hard to diagnose...all cars seem to have electrical issues, esp. older ones..i guess the shit just wears out :bloated:

I had an '85 mazda 626, and had two coils replaced in 5 days, and finally got a whole dizzy from the junkyard, because I suspected it was the igniter and never had issues after that, until the next electrical part to fail was the alternator :( - That was the wife's car, so I sold it (the dude I sold it to drove it for 2 more years, so i guess i fixed all the shit on it for him) and bought her a new Accord, cuz I was tired of fixing her car and it and nickle & diming me and leaving her stranded. Later on, she turned into a bitch, so when I moved out, she kept the Accord (and its payments - lol) - I would never give up my Civic :cool:

LOL - sorry about the life story...sometimes I get on a roll ;)

Sheesh man, that is quite a story. The amuzing part for was believe it or not that your Civic has 210K on it. YEa, electrical shit is hard to fix.:sun:

sound like the main relay. it controls the fuel delivery.

All right here is the update. I changed the ignitor coil and the ignitor itself. NOTHING:mad: I can smell the f...ng fuel so I think the fuel system is ok. (I hope anyway). you say main relay. Where do I find one?

Originally posted by bender
All right here is the update. I changed the ignitor coil and the ignitor itself. NOTHING:mad: I can smell the f...ng fuel so I think the fuel system is ok. (I hope anyway). you say main relay. Where do I find one?

it is under the dash just above the hood release, it will be gray or black, about 2.5 inches long, held in with one 10mm bolt.

you can pick one up at HONDA. also talk to the parts guy at HONDA, some times they can diagnose(sp) thing like that cause they deal with consistant problems all the time. I worked in a HONDA parts dept. for a while and the guys there could do that. Just ask, can't hurt.

Mike

Okay slow down before you start replacing parts out the ass. First, three things are required for engine to run, compression, spark and fuel. Compression i think you have. Now have a friend help you out for this. Remove spark plug wire to cylinder 1 and hold it agaisnt the ground. Have a freind crank the engine over. Don't see a sprak, work your way back throught the wires, to the cap and rotoe, to the igntion coil and igniter, and finally the igntion switch. It sounds like a bad dist. base to me, which means power comes intermintelly.

Turbcivic. I managed to return the ignitor and the ignitor coil because i tested mine and they were fine. So don't worry about me investing in my favourite junk.:flash: I did the test you mentioned. I determined that there is no sparks. I have fuel delivery according to the smell. I was suggested that it could be alternator shorting something (possibly) even though it doesn't do the initial ignition. Tell me people is it worth for me to go to honda dealership and have them run a $75 test for every possible thing?

Well, another test you can do is simple. First question, what test did you do for the coil and igntior? Was it checking the restinace? That is not always a conclusive test tough. Remove the dist. cap and take a test light and apply it the postive terminal on the ingtion coil(key on). There should be a consant light. Next put the test light on the negative terminal of the coil and have a friend crank the car over. The light should strobe. If the coil passes both these tests put the light on the side terminal of the coil and crank the car over, the light should stobe. After doing the third test, check the negative terminal again to see if it strobes.

I've got the same sitch (I think). Mine just died after nearly 10 years of faithful service. It'll crank, but, no start. Smell gas, no spark. The service dude at my local Honda dealer said without a doubt it was the ignitor. The parts dude said I could buy a new one with the heat sink attached for 202! or just buy the ignitor and heat sink seperate for 113. the two piece application was for a 93 DelSol S, but he said it was the exact same thing and would work fine. it has the same connectors and is roughly the same shape but a little longer. It fits fine but didn't correct the problem. I did reset the ECM by removing the 7.5 back up fuse after the job. When it didn't work I ran the same test as the old ignitor and it tested the same. The test is from the 1994 Service Manual I bought with the car. It called for disconnecting the wires from the ignitor (or ICM as my manual puts it) turning the key on, and checking for voltage between the black/yellow WIRE and body ground. this doesn't make much sense to me so I tested between the prong that wire goes on and ground there is no voltage there on either one and since the wire goes to the coil there is voltage on the wire on both. The test for the coil is to check for resistance on the terminals. The manual says it should be between .6 and .8 ohms at 68F. Well it's much hotter here in florida and I get 1.0 ohms. testing something that is temp dependant doesn't tell me much since it's so hot. I'm going to run a test on my ignition switch because I had just taken my cell phone off the key ring a couple of min before it failed. did you find your problem? How did you do it and where should I start?

after running the test on the ignition switch. I basicly started over. Following the self-diagnostic procedure in the book (jump 2p connector and turn on to read the MIL code) we decided we had a bad Engine Coolant Temp. sensor (6 beeps) -- WRONG. $30 later we went back to the distributer (good place to start with no spark - duh) and ran the test on the coil again. well the resistance was still good on the primary winding but (when we finished the test this time) the resistance on the secondary coil was low (10,000 ohms) vice 12,800- 19,200 ohms that the book called for. We took our handy-dandy multimeter down to tht parts store and threw it on the new coil and kabam we had 20k ohms. No prob. we installed the new coil and kazam she started right up. All told I waisted the money on the ignitor and the ect sensor but, the way I look at it a tow truck and diagnostic at the local dealer would have easily ate that up. Overall I feel much more confident in troubleshooting my own problems after this experience. Now I've got to find out how to clear the SRS light I caused when TeSting the ignition switch.

BTW: anybody need an ignitor for a civic cheap?

I hope this can help somebody else out there. Good luck.